Dr. Vijai S Shankar MD.PhD.
Published on www.academy-advaita.com
The Netherlands
27 May 2021
Thinker
“Thoughts”
Every man and woman is convinced that they can think and therefore believe that they are thinkers who can think. Parents tell their children to think before they do anything.
Elders tell everyone junior to them to think. Religious leaders tell their congregation to think what is right and what is wrong before they act. So basically all think that they are thinkers and that they can think.
If man and woman can think by themselves, they will be able to think the first thought to have each morning, but they cannot. This is because the first thought in the morning happens to them and they do not make it happen to them.
Similarly, all the thoughts they have during the day also happen to them and they do not make the thoughts happen to them. If they could, then every man and woman could think the thoughts that they would like to have, but this is not under their control.
Every man and woman believes that they are the doers and the speakers too. They also believe that thoughts in their mind make them act. If this is so, then every man and woman can think what they want to do, speak or think. This is not the case because what they want to do sometimes cannot be done and what they want to speak they come to know after they have spoken. Similarly with thinking as well.
Thinking to go to sleep also does not make sleep happen. Sleep too happens when it is meant to happen and man and woman cannot make sleep happen the moment they want sleep to happen.
By thinking a moment does not happen because a moment is already present within which thinking happens. So, whether a man or woman is a thinker needs to be understood by every man and woman.
A letter in any language is sound and so are letters in any word or in any language sounds. So, basically, every word due to thinking as a thought is only sounds that appear as words in thinking to man and woman.
Sound gets uttered through every living being in nature. Man and woman too are living in nature. Sound is present in every speck of nature. Only particular sounds within man and woman get manifested as words during speaking. Similarly, certain particular sounds in every man and woman get manifested as words in thoughts that are present in thinking.
Every man and woman does not make any moment in life because the moment in life was present in life much before man and woman were present in life. The moment included man and woman within the moment along with matter, vegetation and animals.
If man and woman are able to make the moment, then they can be able to make thinking happen in the moment. Since man and woman cannot make any moment in life happen, they cannot make thinking happen to them.
The enlightened realise that man and woman are not the doer, speaker or thinker. The enlightened therefore do not judge people. The enlightened accept everyone in whatever everyone does, speak or thinks.
Author: Dr. Vijai S. Shankar
© Copyright V. S. Shankar 2021
Editors Note:
In knowledge, for which man has the highest regard, man’s search is to know the origin of the planet that he or she inhabits and, what is more, the origin of life itself. It is believed that this can eventually be understood by exploring the planetary system. Armed with this confident belief, man believes that he or she has the ability to do, to speak and to think. Furthermore, man is trained from an early age to excel in these accomplishments by parents and teachers with praises and prizes as rewards for success. In wisdom, however, the enlightened reveal that the faculties of doing, speaking and thinking, though illusory, have been gifted to man by the intelligence of life.
Julian Capper, UK.
German Translator‘s Note:
One's own thinking is the closest thing there is to any human. Everyone hears only his own thoughts, never those of the others, unless they are spoken, but these are not all thoughts which someone has. Thus, each individual is alone with his own thoughts, because even the words spoken by others appear only through the mediation of one's own thoughts. Every word spoken by others is a thought in one's own mind and is interpreted by one's own thoughts, that is, it is thought to completion in its own unique way. Therefore, communication is always an illusion and never real, which is what the sages proclaim when they declare that humans live in their own respective private worlds of thoughts over which no one has control. Thus it is meant that the world as we perceive it is maya: an illusion of thoughts, constantly in flux, transient, relative, and never absolutely true. That this is undoubtedly so, Dr. Shankar affirms in this article with detailed irrefutable reasons.
Marcus Stegmaier, Germany.